Tracing Shapes to Make Sound

Relying on 3D tracking technology developed at the Ishikawa-Komuro Laboratory in 2003, scoreLight uses lasers to trace the outline of a drawing or object. As the laser dances along the contours, scoreLight produces and modulates sound according to the curvature, angle, texture, color, and contrast. An abrupt change in the direction of a line generates a discrete sound (a glitch or percussion sound), resulting in a steady rhythm when the laser follows a looped path (the size and shape of the looped path determines the tempo and structure of the beat). The device creates a layered tapestry of sound when multiple laser points explore different parts of a drawing.

[via Pink Tentacle]

Pentatonic Scale [Bobby McFerrin]

Bobby McFerrin shows of the pentatonic scale by proving that every audience inuits it regardless of previous training. No wonder it's such a popular scale historically.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

The sound of Disneyland

Former Disney audio experience engineer, Mr. Q, reveals how he assisted in developing a complex algorithm to arrange over 15,000 speakers around the Disney World theme park. All to achieve the ideal ambient music for "manufacturing emotion."

Apparently the original Disney World speaker system, set up in 1968, had an unnoticeable flaw: minuscule variations in sound volume along pathways. As someone walked closer to a speaker, music would seem louder than a few steps away. Despite not a single visitor ever complaining about this common sound effect, twenty years later good ol' Mickey decided to do something about it. Some work and a team effort later, they had Mr. Q's system and algorithm:

The system he built can slowly change the style of the music across a distance without the visitor noticing. As a person walks from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland, for example, each of the hundreds of speakers slowly fades in different melodies at different frequencies so that at any point you can stop and enjoy a fully accurate piece of music, but by the time you walk 400 feet, the entire song has changed and no one has noticed.

So how is a system which strives to be unnoticed manufacturing emotion? According to Mr. Q, the "life is sucked out of" the park when the speakers fail. Even a slightly flawed speaker system could lead to frowns, while perfect music ambiance only leaves Goofy's creepiness to achieve that.

[via Dustin Curtis, Gizmodo]

Geometric Dancer

Performance excerpts from this lecture video:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/260

These bite-size, zero-production-value performances are mostly proof-of-concept things that tie into his lecture about his creative process. The full 40 minute lecture is cool too, but I provide this edited video here since there are not many Michael Moschen performance vids on youtube.

Muppets do Queen [Bohemian Rhapsody]

Computer Music from 1965

A video of Ray Kurzweil at age 17 in 1965 demoing his home built computer that writes sheet music.

2001 Space Odyssey vs School Band

This video gets really good/busted at about 1 minute in.

2001 Space Odyseey School Band Performance @ Yahoo! Video

Cardboard Animation

Graduation short by Sjors Vervoort.
http://www.sjorsvervoort.nl

Animation & design by Sjors Vervoort.
Sound and SFX by Steven Aerts. (The Netherlands).

Talking Piano

Strange Instruments [Ken Butler]

If you can muster the attention span to sit through this whole video, there are some really great moments. Ken Butler performs man of his instruments made from household objects.

8 Bit Trip [music video]

Music from a tree [Diego Stocco]

Diego Stocco - Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Evident Utensil [Music Video by Chairlift]

This video uses a processing technique called Datamosh that mimics the psychedelic pixelated effect that cable or streaming video does when the buffer is catching up.

Music Video (view in Full Quality)

Chairlift - Evident Utensil (Official Music Video) - The top video clips of the week are here

Learn how to Datamosh by watching the videos below. And check out this link to the software that will let you do it http://www.court13.com/datamoshkit.zip

Part 1



Part 2

Beatboxer: Daichi

Natures Headbangers

Comments from the poster:
"Algaqueen park... the music is coming from a headset close to us but the camera hasnt picked it up.
for natural perservation of the vid we didnt edit it to put the song on it, but for ppl interested it was "Decade of Therion" from Behemoth."

60s ladies dancing and slammn

Updated Music


Original Music

Simplistic Music Visualizer

In 1956, György Ligeti composed an electronic piece called “Artikulation”. In 1970’s, Rainer Wehinger created a visual map to the recordings. Some guy out there scanned the images and synced them with the audio. Thanks, guy!
[via ISO50]



Visualization Map

90's nerd version of kraftwerk

The real kraftwerk


[via Gizmodo]

Speakerphone [audio plugin]

If you ever needed to run your sound through a megaphone, cellphone or some other thing like a toy, look no further...that is if you have $450 bucks. It offers everything you need to simulate just about any speaker source.
Official Site
Online Store

Video demo

K-Bow

This is a really cool add-on to any stringed instrument. Even a guitar perhaps?

THe K-Bow gathers all sorts of streaming sensor data (like a wii controller) about where the bow is and uses that information for all kinds of things. ...like being able to start an stop loop recording and modulating effects parameters among anything else you can dream up.
Full NAMM Video Demo
Interview with Keith McMillen
Official Site

Intro to sensor data gathered using Max/MSP